


But Break, My Heart, For I Must Hold My Tongue

by thefutureisbright



Series: All The World's A Stage [2]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Angst, Eddie POV, Fluff, M/M, References to Shakespeare, Slow Burn, Smut, Swearing, companion piece to Unpack My Heart w Words
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 04:20:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 10,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18513778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefutureisbright/pseuds/thefutureisbright
Summary: The first time Eddie is on a proper stage, he cries.He’s dressed in synthetic feathers his mother dyed pink and purple and orange and blue and red with food colouring, and they’re itchy, they’re itching like they’re trying to claw his skin away and set themselves in his pores, they’re itching, they’re so itchy,And now he’s crying.[Or: A companion piece to Unpack My Heart With Words, from Eddie's perspective]





	1. Act I Scene I

The first time Eddie is on a proper stage, he cries.

He’s dressed in synthetic feathers his mother dyed pink and purple and orange and blue and red with food colouring, and they’re itchy, they’re itching like they’re trying to claw his skin away and set themselves in his pores, they’re itching, they’re so _itchy,_

And now he’s crying.

He’s standing on stage, dressed in pink and purple and orange and blue and red feathers, and he’s crying.

His mother’s face is red. It matches the feathers, he thinks, as he stands on the stage dressed as a damn parrot, tears dripping down his face.

They taste like failure.

When his mother hauls him out of the make-shift dressing room (the history class room) he’s still dressed in those pink and purple and orange and blue and red feathers. They’re still itching his skin, but they’re part of him now. They’re glued to him, now. A heady mixture of sweat and blood and fear and disaster coagulating on his skin and keeping those _damn_ feathers fused to his bones.

His mother wrenches them from his arms and chest and neck and it hurts, but not too much. Not enough that he’d let her see him cry, anyway. She’d already seen enough of his tears this evening, _thank you very much._

Eddie knew that it was never his dream to become an act- _orrrrrrrrr_. You’ve got to say it like that. Act- _oorrrrrr_. Emphasis on the _orrrrr_. That’s how his mother said it, anyway. She’d bleat on and on and on in this high-pitched whistle-y tone that sounded like a kettle that had been boiling for too long. Screaming. It made Eddie’s teeth scrape against each other in protest. He had to wear a mouth-guard when he sleeps. The dentist told him it was stress or something. His mother had protested, naturally.

“Stress?! What does he have to be _stressed_ about?! I’m the one with the job, I’m the one supporting him in this private school that is _sucking my veins dry,_ Eddie-bear, don’t you know. I’m the one –“

_You’re the one, you’re the one, you’re the one, you’re the one,_

_That is causing my teeth to fall out._

Eddie went to private school, naturally. His mother scrimped and saved and scrimped and saved some more so she had enough money to pay for the fees at St Edmund’s Secondary School for Boys. He hadn’t asked her to move him from his cosy state primary school and drop him head first into the vipers nest of a private secondary school. These posh boys had sharp teeth and hissing voices and they were drawn to Eddie’s pathetic, mousy squeaks.  His mother didn’t care, though. _They had the best drama department in the whole of the south-west, Eddie-bear, don’t you know._ Eddie didn’t’ care.

He’d taken drama for GCSE, naturally. He’d passed it without much effort. Write some things about Priestley’s criticisms of capitalism here, some things about the symbolism of handkerchiefs here. Stand and splutter for ten minutes in front of a bored looking examiner, who would much rather be watching paint dry than thirty sixteen year olds butcher Tennessee Williams, and you’ve passed. Gold star for you. Participation trophies all ‘round.

Eddie’s mother had been so proud of him, naturally. She’d screamed with a kind of terrifying delight when he’d handed her his results slip. She’d fussed and squawked about how her Eddie-bear was just _soooooooo_ talented. Emphasis on the _soooooooo._ She’d called every person she’d ever met, to tell them that her little prodigy was practically perfect in every way. Eddie didn’t have the energy to tell her an A wasn’t the highest grade you could get.

Eddie had taken drama for A-Level, naturally. His mother paid for this text book and that text book and various annotated copies of _Antigone_ and the adaptation of the story about a man who turns into a beetle. He forgets the name of the writer. He spends a lot of time staring at the words on the page, and hallucinating vividly about the kind of person he’d have to be in order to convince people that this is what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

His mother made him perform for her every evening.

“My own little Olivier, aren’t you, Eddie-bear” she’d simper.

Eddie would shrug, wordless.

_“All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride”_

“Oh, how _wonderful,_ Eddie-bear. You read those lines _beautifully”_

_“Leave me to my own absurdity”_

“Oh Eddie! You are so talented”

_“Oh it's terrible when the one who does the judging judges things all wrong”_

The irony was certainly not lost on him.

It all goes wrong in June.

Eddie sits his A Level drama exam in June. His teacher chose the Lion King. His mother was ecstatic. Eddie was apathetic.

Zazu. Feathers. Fear.

“Eddie!”

Silence.

“Psst! Eddie! That’s your cue!”

Cue tears, not words.

Eddie cries on stage, dressed in feathers and with a cardboard beak attached to his face.

 

* * *

 

He fails the exam.

 

* * *

 

Eddie finds himself sitting on an embellished, glorified bench outside heavy mahogany doors. His mother is sat next to him, wheezing breaths fighting their way in and out of her nose. It’s collapsing in on her face. Disappearing into the pillowy fat engulfing her features. Eddie wonders how long it’ll be until she can no longer meet his eyes.

 There’s a boy around his age sat opposite him. His curly hair is perfectly quaffed off his face. Eddie meets his eyes. They look kind.

 “Stanley Uris, please!”

The boy disappears behind the mahogany doors. The residual kindness in the room quickly disappears, too.

The worms in Eddie’s stomach writhe furiously. The butterflies died a long time ago.

 Soon, the boy pushes his way back through the doors. A broad smile splits his face. His mother looks pleased. They walk off hand in hand.

 “Edward Kaspbrak, please!”

 His mother squeals, clapping her hands together like a deranged seal.

 The worms in Eddie’s stomach turn to snakes.

 

* * *

 

He passes the interview

 

* * *

 He gets the letter a week later.

 

_Dear Mr Kaspbrak,_

_Congratulations! ------------_

The other words clot together like blood. He doesn’t read the rest of the letter.

His mother is overjoyed. Eddie wishes he could study German, instead.

 

* * *

 

Five days later, and Eddie is browsing mindlessly on the internet when an intrusive pop-up startles him.

 

_To: Sonia.Kaspbrak@outlook.com_

_From: BreeBainton@RADA.admissions.ac.uk_

_RE: Donation_

_Dear Mrs Kaspbrak,_

_Please do accept our warmest thanks for your kind donation of £12,000._

_Sincerely,_

_Bree Bainton,_

_Admissions officer,_

_RADA_

 

 

The snakes crawl up his throat, threatening to breach.

 Holden Caulfield ain’t got nothing on Eddie Kaspbrak.

 

 


	2. Act I Scene II

 

Eddie noticed him first.

He’d walked into the room, cornflower eyes and hibiscus cheeks and Eddie’s rib cage had closed slowly around his heart, constricting the _thump thump thump_ of his heart to a dull bassy echo in his ears. Eddie watched as he had stood in the middle of the room, an ice-berg adrift in the ocean, before sidling towards the boy who had been present at the most harrowing moment of Eddie’s life, who was singing about the promise of a new Argentina. Eddie watched them laugh, the timbre of their voices mingling in the air. Eddie breathed it in.

 The session passed uneventfully. His phone had buzzed in his pockets three times over the course of the hour, weighing his pocket down with the weight of the messages he knew were waiting for him.

 

_How did it go Eddie?_

_Have you got a big part?_

_I’ll ask them to give you a big speaking part, don’t worry Eddie bear_

 

He deletes the texts one by one, sending them clattering into the void with press of a button. _Whoosh!_

* * *

 

 

Eddie watches him every lesson. His face is always split by a grin that reminds Eddie of sunshine.

 

* * *

 

Eddie knew that rehearsal room 3 was never locked. He knew that he’d be able to sneak in there, covered by a blanket of darkness and forgettability, and no one would find him. He’d started going there after class, a desperate attempt to avoid having to crawl home with his tail between his legs.

 

_No mother, I haven’t got a speaking part yet. Yes mother, I’ve been asking._

 

Eddie has not asked.

Eddie had been drawn to tragedy, iron filings to a magnet, and had never looked back since. Jacques had told him that tragic catharsis is a way to purify the human mind, to scrub clean the psyche, in order that we might better understand ourselves and our most powerful emotions – misery, suffering, fear. Redemption.

Eddie was not so sure. 

King Lear. Profound, horrifying play that anatomises the human condition so closely it made Eddie’s stomach churn. It was his favourite play.

 

‘ _Ay, every inch a king:_ _  
When I do stare, see how the subject quakes._ ’

 

No one trembles when they look at Eddie.

 

‘… _Let copulation thrive_ …’

 

Like he had when he’d fucked the only other gay guy at his secondary school over and over and over again until he could not look at himself in the eye anymore. Eddie had stared into a mirror, and watched a stranger stare back at him.

‘ _Got 'tween the lawful sheets_ – WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU’

A crash set the hairs on Eddie’s arms on end.

‘I was just – I left my wallet in the – your Lear is seriously _amazing,_ you know’

It was him. The boy with the wild hair and searching eyes.

 Eddie stared at him, his hideous heart beating against the floorboards of his rib-cage – the melodic _thump thump thump_ the only indication that he was still alive.

The boy stared back at him.

Once the fog in Eddie’s brain had cleared, he willed his lead feet forward, out of the door and down the linoleum corridor. The smell of bleach lingered in the air, and it burnt his nose. 

 

* * *

 

He got home late that night. He’d stumbled back through London, foregoing the tube in favour of wandering the endless streets until he’d arrived, sweaty and dishevelled, at the house he shared with his mother.

She’d shrieked at him, _why are you late, Eddie-bear! What have you been dooooooing?_ She elongated her words, shoving them forcefully into Eddie’s brain, crawling and winding around his skull like centipedes.

‘Studying, Mother’

She seemed placated. But it wouldn’t last forever. It never did.

 

* * *

 

The second time Eddie saw him, Eddie didn’t see him. A firm body collided with his, forcing Eddie to take a step forward to prevent himself from landing face-first on the floor.

He’d told Eddie that he’d been calling him Lear. Eddie forced back a laugh. King of England, he certainly was not. Mad with power? If only. Impatient, passionate, cruel? Wait and see.

( _lovemelovemeloveme)_

* * *

 

The third time Eddie saw him, they were working together. Gaveston and Edward, of course. A love story against a background of turbulence and anger.  Tragic love. The only love.

Eddie has told him his name. When he’d given Eddie back his notes. Eddie had told him to call him Lear, if he wants. A power play, perhaps. Something to do with ambition. Or perhaps it was something to do with distance. Eddie doesn’t think about it too much. He knew Eddie’s name, but he didn’t tell Eddie his. Eddie didn’t need to ask.

Richie was pliant. A plasticine boy who let Eddie shape and mould him into whatever monstrous form he desired. He’d made Richie take on the role of Edward II, foppish king.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to be Edward? I mean, it is your name after all’ Richie had repeated.

Eddie had silently shook his head.

‘I’d like you to stop calling me Lear’ Eddie had said, instead. The distance between them closed by a millimetre.

 

* * *

 

They performed for Jacques and the rest of the class on a Friday. It had rained all morning, and Eddie’s hair stuck to his forehead stubbornly. The worms in his stomach quivered, sending static shocks that tasted like stomach acid up his throat.

 The performance had gone well. Eddie hadn’t cried.

 He’d grabbed Richie’s hand, and told himself that Gaveston had grabbed Edward’s hand, but he knew he was lying to himself.

 Richie did not drop his hand, not when he’d said his last line, not when their classmates were applauding, and not when Jacques asked them to see him after class.

 Richie carried on clutching his hand.

Eddie let go.

 

* * *

 

‘I would very much like you to perform this extract for the sponsors at the winter recital, I think you have such _wonderful_ chemistry and with a bit of practice I think this piece could be truly –‘

‘No’

Eddie stood up, clutching his rucksack to his chest as if it were an oxygen tank, and walked out of the room.

Blood thundered in his ears as he calmly walked down the stairs, hand gliding gracefully atop the polished banister. Once he reached the bottom of the staircase, Eddie ran.

He’d made it as far as the foyer before Richie caught him.

‘What the hell, dude?’

Richie’s hand was on his arm. It burnt.

‘What are you _doing_ , get off me’ he spat, words dripping from his mouth and burning through the floor like acid.

‘Seriously, what the hell?’ Richie repeated.

Eddie marched straight out of the foyer, leaving the door swinging on its hinges and Richie with his jaw hanging open, aghast.

Richie had chased him. Richie had chased him, and he’d put his hands on him, and he’d looked at Eddie with these pleading, desperate eyes and Eddie’s walls had started to fall. Nay, Eddie’s walls had detonated in one go, brick and mortar flying through the air.

‘…And I choke. I can’t do it, Richie. I’m sorry but –‘

Richie grabbed him.

Eddie froze.

Richie’s arms encircled his neck, and Eddie had stilled, expecting them to turn to cobras, but they never did.

Eddie’s mother hugged him a lot. She encased him, absorbed him into her body, until his skin burnt where they were fused together. Eddie’s mother hugged him a lot, but Eddie wished she wouldn’t.

This was different. This was warmth, tight and everlasting and Eddie realised that he was starving. He let himself feed, grow corpulent.

Soon enough, suitably gorged on affection, Eddie wrenched himself away.

Even though his body screamed for Richie’s soft touch, he turned, and he left.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted Act I Scene II to Act II Scene II today. I want this and Unpack My Heart to move on simultaneously, so I needed to get this Eddie POV story up to the same point as the Richie POV in Unpack My Heart. That's why I have posted so many chapters in one go! Hope that makes sense.
> 
> This is an angsty story, so please bare that in mind before you move forward. If you do not like angst, this might not be the story for you. [I promise it has a happy ending, tho!] But I hope it is a story 4 u!! and that you like it!! I like writing it. 
> 
> lemme know what you thought either here on on tumblr @ queen-sock.tumblr.com 
> 
> <3


	3. Act I Scene III

‘Edward, it pains me to have to tell you this, but if you do not perform in the winter recital, the Dean said that we will have to ask you to withdraw from the programme. Your recital grades are just simply too poor for you to pass up this opportunity. My hands really are tied, Eddie.’

Eddie stared at a large, engorged mole in the centre of Jacques forehead. It stared right back at him. 

‘Are you listening, Edward?’

Jacques was kind. He spoke to Eddie like Eddie was a mouse, one harsh word away from a heart-attack. Eddie nodded, indicating that yes, he was very aware of the consequences should he not sell his soul and perform in front of three hundred piercing gazes. Jacques nodded back at him, an unspoken contract passing between them. 

_I know you can do this._

_I don’t think I can._

_You have to._

_I know._

 

When he’d told Richie that he’d agreed to participate in the recital Richie had tried to look pleased. Eddie knew he was not. Richie’s eyes did not smile with his mouth.

They worked on the extract after every seventeenth-century tragedy workshop. Eddie spent more time than he’d ever admit staring at the way Richie’s throat moved when he spoke, and how his lips moved along with Eddie’s, silently mouthing the words that Eddie spoke aloud. They were good together. Solid. Richie’s passion and Eddie’s sheer tenacity. We will not fail. I must not fail.

Eddie pretended not to notice the blush that painted Richie’s cheeks every time Eddie called him ‘My Lord’ or looked up at him from where he knelt on the floor.

Richie pretended not to notice Eddie staring at him from across the room every time they had class together.

 

* * *

 

Eddie could not stop thinking about when Richie had hugged him. It made him an uncomfortable hybrid angry-content. He was angry that Richie had the audacity to draw him into his arms – entirely unprovoked. However, try as he might, and try he did, he could not pretend that something about having Richie’s arms around him did not feel entirely correct, like he belonged there. Or something.

They worked together again. Jacques had chosen _Faustus._ Eddie accepted the role of Mephistophilis, a role that felt eerily, uncannily appropriate for his mood. An ugly, transformative mood. He felt volatile, and worried that he’d explode in Richie’s face. To prevent any imminent self-destruction, Eddie asked Richie to join him for coffee. He’d never asked anyone out for coffee before. It was an invitation so intimate that Eddie had balked at the possibility of asking anyone before now.

Richie made him feel reckless, and Eddie was not sure whether he liked it, yet.

The time passed slowly, like wading through tar. They ordered the same thing, decaf Americanos. Eddie didn’t’ like coffee, didn’t like the way it tasted like burnt chocolate and dirt. He forces himself to drink it, though. Richie slurps his own coffee down, and Eddie watched Richie’s throat swallow the bitter brown-black liquid.

They spoke about the recital, eventually. Eddie supposed that was why they were at the coffee shop at the first place – get to know each other better, get to know how the other persons brain works, how they think. Eddie wishes it was more. Pleasure, not business. It was always business. Eddie never let himself have anything more, anything that might have the possibility of meaning more. His heart thumps when he realises that he’d let himself desire more for Richie.

Richie invited Eddie to his house. Eddie agrees readily, shocked that Richie still seemed keen to work with him even though Eddie had admitted that he’d cried on stage like a petulant child. Eddie was shocked that Richie still wanted to work with him even though Eddie had split his chest open and revealed his biggest weakness. Eddie’s heart thumps harder against his chest when he realises that he would do the same for Richie, if he could.

 ‘I’ll see you at yours tomorrow, then. Just to practice, though. It’s just practicing’ Eddie says, carefully assessing Richie’s face. Hoping.

‘Yeah, I know it’s just practicing?’ Richie’s sentence ends on an inflection, like he’s questioning Eddie without openly asking.

The worms in Eddie’s stomach shifted painfully.

He walked away, without saying goodbye.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t go home immediately. He goes to the Church nestled in the outskirts of the borough he lives in. Eddie is not religious, and he does not go to the Church to worship. Eddie sits in the church to bask in the silence, the reverent quiet that drenches the building in waves. The stone walls do not screech at him, and the other people with their heads bowed in careful contemplation do not notice as he sits in the back pew and cries silently into his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted Act I Scene II to Act II Scene II today. I want this and Unpack My Heart to move on simultaneously, so I needed to get this Eddie POV story up to the same point as the Richie POV in Unpack My Heart. That's why I have posted so many chapters in one go! Hope that makes sense.
> 
> This is an angsty story, so please bare that in mind before you move forward. If you do not like angst, this might not be the story for you. [I promise it has a happy ending, tho!] But I hope it is a story 4 u!! and that you like it!! I like writing it. 
> 
> lemme know what you thought either here on on tumblr @ queen-sock.tumblr.com 
> 
> <3


	4. Act I Scene IV

 

 ‘I want to leave’

Jacques does not look surprised. In fact, his face settles into expectance. He knew this was coming.

‘Have you got any ideas about what you’d like to do instead?’ Jacques asks.

‘I want to learn how to direct theatre’

Jacques hums, and types silently into his computer for a few minutes. Eddie sits and waits.

‘Have you looked at the course at the Edinburgh College of Dramatic Arts?’

Eddie nods.

‘And what do you think?’

‘I think it looks perfect'

Jacques hums again.

‘I think you’re making the right choice, Edward’

‘Are you not going to try and stop me? Convince me that my future is here? That if I just try a little bit harder, I’ll be able to do it? That it’s just a self-belief issue? That I’m the most talented person this damn school has ever seen?’

‘No’

‘Why not?' 

‘Because it wouldn’t be the truth’

Eddie sighs.

‘I know’

 

* * *

 

Jacques helps him fill in the application form. It takes nearly two hours and Eddie nearly screams with frustration multiple times. Jacques keeps him grounded, though. A buoy in a tempest.

He plans to stay at RADA until the course in Edinburgh starts in March. That gives him just over four months to figure out how to tell his mother he will be leaving her behind.

‘How should I tell my mother I’m leaving?’ Eddie asks Jacques, shattering the silence.

‘Will she not support your decision?’

‘Something like that’

Jacques looks at him, soft eyes meeting Eddie’s cold, hard ones.

‘I think you’re the only person who knows how to tell her. Be honest with her, Eddie, she might surprise you’ 

Eddie smiles, sadly, knowing that his mother could never be happy for him.

 

* * *

 

‘It’s just you and me up there, kid. Just you and me’

He’s standing next to Richie, backstage left, and the worms in his stomach are trying to force their way up his throat. His hands are shaking, and he tries to desperately not to reach out and grab Richie’s still ones. He almost fails, shuffling closer and closer until he can feel the heat emanating from Richie’s skin. Calming.

Richie walks on stage first. He looks everything the king, crown balanced precariously on top of his head, curls slicked back against his head. His eyes are strong, his jaw jutting forwards, and he is standing to the full extent of his six-foot-something height.

 

_How fast they run to banish him I love!_

_They would not stir, were it to do me good..._

 

Love. Eddie yearns for something he knows Richie should never give him.

 

_…If I be king, not one of them shall live._

 

Eddie is so transfixed he almost misses his cue.

 

He walks out onto the stage, eyes never leaving Richie’s. Richie watches him walk, and Eddie closes his eyes. He breathes. He relaxes his jaw, and drops to his knees. He opens his eyes.

 

_‘My lord, I hear it whispered everywhere,_

_That I am banish'd, and must fly the land.’_

 

Eddie  watches Richie’s chest constrict sharply at the words ‘My Lord’. Richie doesn’t release his breath until Eddie has stopped speaking.

 

Richie hauls Eddie to his feet.

 

_Tis true, sweet Gaveston_

_O! were it false! …’_

Eddie cannot hear the rest of Richie’s lines because Richie has gone off plan. His hands are clasped around Eddie’s face, palms pressed to his cheeks. Eddie cannot breathe.

 

The rest of the performance Eddie works on autopilot.

 

* * *

 

‘You fuckin’ did it, Eds! You were magnificent, honestly, you put me to shame’

‘Sorry, My Lord’

Eddie says it to see what Richie does, how he reacts. Eddie says it to see how far he can push it, to see whether he can pull Richie towards him. Not physically, of course. Mentally, emotionally. 

It works.

Eddie watches Richie stumble slightly, leaning against the wall with more of his weight than before. 

‘Are you going to the winter ball this evening?’ Richie asks him, voice shaking almost imperceptibly but Eddie notices and locks the sound away in a little box marked ‘ _remember forever’._

‘Are you?’ Eddie shoots back.

‘Yup! I’m wearing matching masks with Stan. They have antlers and everything! I think he paid Beverly Marsh to make them?’

Eddie watches Richie’s face. He looks so young, so open. So excited.

Eddie remembers that he might be leaving London in March, that he’ll be leaving whatever this turns into behind.

‘Then yeah. I’ll see you there’ he replies, sending the ‘might be’ careening out of his brain.

 

* * *

 

Eddie watches Richie dance with the girl he doesn’t recognise and he tries not to let the jealousy blind him. He knows he has no right to be jealous, that Richie is not his.

Soon enough, Eddie can no longer ignore the niggling voice inside his head and he emerges from the dark recesses  of the school hall. He strides across the wooden floor, seeking Richie out like a homing missile. Richie watches him approach.

Eddie pulls him into an empty classroom. He doesn’t turn on the light, hoping that darkness with infuse him with the confidence he so desperately needs. He cannot see Richie’s face, but he can hear the soft puffs of his breath from how they’re standing – almost nose to nose. Eddie speaks almost directly into Richie’s mouth.

‘I just wanted to thank you for earlier’

‘Oh, ‘Tis nae bother, laddy!’ Richie replies in something close to a Scottish accent. 

Eddie cannot help but laugh, an embarrassing snort forcing its way out of his nose. 

Suddenly they’re hugging.

Eddie knows it was him who pulled Richie towards him, that it he initiated.

Richie does not push him away.

‘I want you, I want you so fucking bad’ Richie whispers in Eddie’s ear.

‘Just fucking kiss me, then’

Eddie floats on a high he never knew existed. He never kissed Jake. They just fucked.

This, though, this is different. Richie owns the key that unlocked this deep, insatiable hunger deep within the pit of Eddie’s stomach, and he keeps turning it, opening Eddie up more and more and Eddie is both thrilled and horrified at the prospect of Richie wrenching him wide open. 

The kiss is cut short prematurely when someone yells something Eddie does not hear into the room. Richie tries to kiss him again, but Eddie does not let him. 

‘Rich, I have to go’

Richie groaned.

‘Seriously?’ 

‘Yeah I told my mum I’d be home by ten. I only came so I – so I could do that’ Eddie replied, stepping away from Richie. His body aches.

‘I’ll text you, okay?’

Eddie knows he does not have Richie’s number. Eddie also knows that he is not going to ask for it.

He leaves the room and does not look back.

 

* * *

 

Eddie tells his mother that he kissed a boy at the winter recital.

 

She locks herself in her bedroom and cries for an hour.

 

* * *

 

Eddie does not let what he has with Richie mutate into anything beyond hooking up. He refuses to let himself hope.

This resolve collapses when Richie corners him in the bathroom and demands that Eddie tell him why they cannot be anything more than a casual hook-up.

For the second time, the fragile walls that Eddie had been half-heartedly rebuilding around himself collapse in a cacophony of wet breaths and hushed ‘ _it’s okay’s_ ’. 

Eddie entered school that morning half a person. He leaves school that evening still half a person, but he feels something that feels like change shifting in his bones.

 

* * *

 

Eddie initiates the first time they move past kissing.  They’d been making out on Richie’s bed, lazily running their hands over each other’s bodies, when Eddie had pulled away. Richie groaned, trying to grab at the back of Eddie’s neck, to pull him back down.

‘Go stand by the wall, I wanna blow you’ Eddie had said, voice cracking slightly. 

‘Holy shit – y’sure?’ 

‘More sure than I’ve ever been’

Richie scrambled over Eddie, launching himself off of the bed, before backing against the wall. Eddie stalked over to him. Eddie dropped to his knees, and Richie watched silently as Eddie pulled his jeans and boxers down his hips and thighs. Richie’s already-hard cock sprang forward. Eddie took it in his hand, wrapping his fist around the base. He wet his lips with his tongue, staring up at Richie with challenging eyes. Richie said nothing, just stared down at Eddie. Eddie could see Richie’s thighs trembling, the muscle straining against the skin.

Eddie flicked his tongue against the drops of precum escaping from the head of Richie’s dick, eliciting the most delicious moan from above.  Eddie savoured the taste of salt on his tongue and the sound of Richie desperately trying to keep himself together in his ears. Eddie took Richie’s dick into his mouth, pausing for several seconds to feel the thick weight of Richie resting on his tongue, all salty, silky flesh. He started slowly, barely there strokes of his tongue and pressure of his lips, before picking up the pace. The room was silent, bar the groans Richie muffled with his fist, and the wet, suckling noises coming from Eddie’s mouth. Richie grabbed Eddie’s hair with his other hand. His hips stuttered, fucking himself into Eddie’s mouth, just slightly. Eddie willed his throat to relax, willed the tight muscles in his throat to retreat, so he could take more of Richie’s length into his mouth. Richie’s hips thrust helplessly, trying and failing to follow the rhythm Eddie was keeping to.

Soon, Eddie’s nose brushed against the thicket of hair at the root of Richie’s cock. He stilled his head, and tugged on Richie’s arm. He looked up, an unspoken command. Richie moved his hips, an experimental thrust into the warm wetness of Eddie’s mouth. Eddie hummed around Richie’s dick. Richie continued to fuck Eddie’s mouth, stuttering nonsensical praise as he did. Soon enough, Richie pushed his hips forwards desperately, movements becoming erratic.

‘Eds, fuck, Baby, gonna – m’gonna…’ 

Eddie didn’t pull off, just swallowed desperately around Richie’s dick. He had never swallowed with Jake, he had always spat it out into the bathroom sink. Richie was different. He wanted to taste him, wanted to consume everything Richie would give him. He hoped that Richie would give him everything.

 

* * *

 

 

The letter that ruined everything weighed heavy in Eddie’s hands as he walked home from Richie’s house.

 

_Dear Mr Kaspbrak,_

_We are delighted to offer you a place on the ‘Dramatic Arts: Direction’ course, starting March 2019._

_Please find enclosed a recent prospectus. You can expect to hear from us in due course regarding living arrangements and the payment information for your scholarship._

_Once again, congratulations, Mr Kaspbrak. The course is highly competitive, and it is a testament to your talent, dedication and hard work that we are able to offer you a place._

_Best Wishes,_

_Jerome Gardner_

_Chair of Performing Arts, Edinburgh College of Dramatic Arts_

 

Richie hadn’t screamed at him to leave, hadn’t yelled at him like Eddie had so desperately craved, just asked him to leave.

 

_‘Just go, just fucking go before I die right here at this table’_

 

The insinuation that Eddie leaving him would kill him wounded Eddie more than a thousand knives could ever dream.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted Act I Scene II to Act II Scene II today. I want this and Unpack My Heart to move on simultaneously, so I needed to get this Eddie POV story up to the same point as the Richie POV in Unpack My Heart. That's why I have posted so many chapters in one go! Hope that makes sense.
> 
> This is an angsty story, so please bare that in mind before you move forward. If you do not like angst, this might not be the story for you. [I promise it has a happy ending, tho!] But I hope it is a story 4 u!! and that you like it!! I like writing it. 
> 
> lemme know what you thought either here on on tumblr @ queen-sock.tumblr.com 
> 
> <3


	5. Act I Scene V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a quick FYI: 'Myne Owne Hertis Rote' = 'My Own Heart's Root' in Middle English. It's a Medieval term of endearment, which basically means 'you're at the very centre of my heart'

 

To: **myne owne hertis rote** :

If you ask me to stay I will

 

 

Eddie knows that he would. That he’d stay, if only Richie would ask him.

 

To: **myne owne hertis rote:**

If you reply in ten minutes I won’t leave

 

Richie does not reply in ten minutes.

 

To: **myne owne hertis rote:**

I love you

 

Richie does not reply in ten hours.

 

 

* * *

 

Eddie’s mother takes the news of him leaving better than he could have imagined. She seems excited, and helps him pack. Eddie begins to second guess himself, begins to question whether she had ever been the controlling, over-protective brute he thought her to be, before he comes to the horrifying conclusion that everyone wants him to leave. The people who were supposed to love him unconditionally, without measure or reason, want him to leave.

 

* * *

 

Eddie’s train leaves at twenty past five in the morning. Neither Richie nor his mother wave him off from the platform.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted Act I Scene II to Act II Scene II today. I want this and Unpack My Heart to move on simultaneously, so I needed to get this Eddie POV story up to the same point as the Richie POV in Unpack My Heart. That's why I have posted so many chapters in one go! Hope that makes sense.
> 
> This is an angsty story, so please bare that in mind before you move forward. If you do not like angst, this might not be the story for you. [I promise it has a happy ending, tho!] But I hope it is a story 4 u!! and that you like it!! I like writing it. 
> 
> lemme know what you thought either here on on tumblr @ queen-sock.tumblr.com 
> 
> <3


	6. Act II Scene I

 

_15th April 2018_

Dearest Richie,

 

I know writing letters is perhaps a bit ridiculous. I can just hear you now, ‘you are so damn pretentious, Spaghetti’. I’d yell at you for calling me Spaghetti, and you’d just smile at me like you always do. That damn smile. You look at me like I hung the moon, Rich, did you know that? It makes my skin crawl sometimes. What could I have possibly done in a past life to warrant you looking at me like that. I ask myself that a lot. Maybe I’ll ask you, too. I suppose I just did.

 

How are you? Stupid question, right? I suppose you probably hate me. I’d be shocked if you reply to this. But I’m writing it anyway. Hope. What a cruel thing.

 

I’ve been in Edinburgh for a month now. It’s beautiful. It reminds me of you. Maybe you’ll come and visit me? I’ll take you to see the castle, and we can look across the city together. Your Gaveston, and my Edward.

 

I hope you read this.

 

Love you always,

 

Eddie.

 

* * *

 

_20th June 2018_

My Love,

 

You never replied to my last letter, but that’s okay. I suppose I didn’t expect to hear from you. I’m writing this in the library. The college has a huge library. I’m here with someone from my class. She’s called Jess. She just asked me what I was doing, and I said I was writing a letter to my boyfriend. She told me to tell you she said hello. So, Jess says hello, I guess.

 

I probably shouldn’t still call you my boyfriend, but how else do I describe what you are to me? What am I to you now? Probably a wound. Please don’t tell me.

 

I hope you can read my handwriting. Maybe that’s why you never replied to my letter before. Maybe you just couldn’t read it.

 

I know that’s not true.

 

I went up to the castle today. I could see across the city.

 

_Everything the light touches is our kingdom._

 

Love,

 

Your Eddie.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_1st September 2018_

Rich,

 

I passed all my exams. I got the results in July. I passed with the highest marks in the cohort. Does that make you angry? Perhaps it does. I left you to get these grades, after all.

 

I would have stayed if you had asked, though.

 

But you didn’t ask.

 

Love,

 

Eddie.

 

* * *

 

 

_13th November 2018_

Richie,

 

I haven’t seen you for eight months. I’ve forgotten what your voice sounds like.

 

I love you.

 

* * *

 

 

_25 th December 2018_

Rich,

 

It’s Christmas day and I’m so sorry I left you.

 

I’m beginning to regret it less, though.

 

I wish you were happy for me.

 

I still love you,

 

Eddie

 

 

* * *

 

 

_1 st Feburary 2019_

My love,

 

I saw you on the first day of classes. You didn’t see me. You were talking to Stan, and he was singing. You were trying to sing along with him, but you didn’t know the words. You sounded awful. You looked beautiful.

 

But I can’t remember your face anymore.

 

I fear this might be goodbye.

 

I don’t want it to be.

 

Eddie.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_10th March 2019_

 

R,  
  
One half of me is yours, the other half yours. Mine own, I would say; but if mine then yours.  
  
E

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_15 th April 2019_

 

And so, all yours.

 

E

 

 

* * *

 

Eddie never wrote to Richie Tozier again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted Act I Scene II to Act II Scene II today. I want this and Unpack My Heart to move on simultaneously, so I needed to get this Eddie POV story up to the same point as the Richie POV in Unpack My Heart. That's why I have posted so many chapters in one go! Hope that makes sense.
> 
> This is an angsty story, so please bare that in mind before you move forward. If you do not like angst, this might not be the story for you. [I promise it has a happy ending, tho!] But I hope it is a story 4 u!! and that you like it!! I like writing it. 
> 
> lemme know what you thought either here on on tumblr @ queen-sock.tumblr.com 
> 
> <3


	7. Act II Scene II

Eddie graduates from the Edinburgh College of Dramatic Arts with the highest grade possible. He pretends he doesn’t remember the boy from RADA with the wild hair and the kind eyes and the voice that sounded like crunching leaves.

He gets a job working as the assistant director for a small theatre company in Brighton. The director, a brash woman named Sandra, rules her production with an iron fist and a commanding tone and she is the most inspirational person Eddie has ever met. He tries desperately, almost pathetically, to please her, to impress her. He succeeds, and she recommends him for a job directing a small production of _The Tempest_ at a theatre in Bristol.

The production receives stellar reviews. 

Eddie receives a card in the post. It is written in French. He types the text into google translate.

 

_**Edward,** _

__

_**I am so proud of you.** _

__

_**Be not afraid of greatness.** _

__

_**Jacques.** _

 

Eddie keeps that letter under his pillow for decades to come.

 

* * *

 

The pinnacle of his career comes to him early. He’s thirty-two when he successfully applies for the role of Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

His mother cries down the phone, massive shuddery breaths. She is proud of him, but it does not fill the very specific hole in his heart. 

The first production that he is to direct and oversee is Hamlet. Eddie is terrified of Hamlet. He is not scared of the ghost or any of the macabre aspects of the play, of course. The thing that terrifies Eddie so profoundly about the play is the fact that no other character in the history of literature has ever embodied Eddie’s very specific brand of fear.

Eddie rereads Hamlet, blocking out prospective staging ideas on a piece of paper, but he snaps the pencil in two from gripping it too hard.

 

_Conscience doth make cowards of us all_

 

* * *

 

Eddie does not cast this production. That is left to Claire, the woman he replaces. He gets sent a list of the selected actors, but he does not look at it.

He meets them all on the first day of rehearsals and almost drops his extra-hot Americano when he spots a face he recognises.

Stanely Uris, his Horatio. 

Eddie cannot help but send a smirk skywards, as if Claire was floating above him. 

However, when he nearly walks into a lanky figure crouched on the stairs leading up to the main theatre entrance nothing could prepare him for the sheer horror of discovering that Richard Tozier has been cast as Hamlet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted Act I Scene II to Act II Scene II today. I want this and Unpack My Heart to move on simultaneously, so I needed to get this Eddie POV story up to the same point as the Richie POV in Unpack My Heart. That's why I have posted so many chapters in one go! Hope that makes sense.
> 
> This is an angsty story, so please bare that in mind before you move forward. If you do not like angst, this might not be the story for you. [I promise it has a happy ending, tho!] But I hope it is a story 4 u!! and that you like it!! I like writing it. 
> 
> lemme know what you thought either here on on tumblr @ queen-sock.tumblr.com 
> 
> <3


	8. Act III Scene I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Act III Scene I of this story is to be read alongside Chapter 4 of Unpack My Heart With Words [the wheel is come full circle]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18260651/chapters/44986183)

The bass booms around him. It’s a solid wall of pounding, repetitive notes that shake Eddie’s bones as he stands in the middle of the dark room, and sways. He opens his mouth, just barely, and the music pours down his throat in one cool stream. He’s got his hands on the shoulders of someone he doesn’t know. Their hands are on his waist, pinching the skin slightly. His head tips back, and he laughs. He can’t hear himself over the thundering of the beat and the thundering of his heart.

 

 _In a sea of faces, in a sea of doubt_ _  
In this cruel place your voice above the maelstrom_

 

The person with their hands on his waist has thick, ebony hair. It bounces around their face as they move. Slithering hips and licks of lips. Eddie doesn’t look at their face. His eyes are closed.

 

 _Can you hear me calling you to_ _  
Save me, save me, save me from the – –_

 

The person with their hands on his waist tilts their head towards the bathroom. The thought passes through his mind, the consequences of agreeing. A quick fuck against a dirty wall, and then he’s gone. Lighter but heavier, so much heavier. The thought lingers, but is chased away when the person with their hands on his hips starts to tug on his hand. Eddie peels his hand away, and shakes his head once. No.

_there's a weight above me_  
_And the pressure is all too strong_  
_To breathe deep_  
_Breathe long and hard_  
_To take the water down and go to sleep_

 

 

* * *

 

Eddie noticed him first.

He was sat on the step outside the main doors to the theatre, chewing on his lip in that charmingly neurotic way that Eddie always scolded him for. Huge red welts littering the skin. He looked almost the same; a realisation that caused the snakes in Eddie’s stomach to twist around his gut, harder, tighter. Same glasses ( _with tape around the bridge)._ Same eyes ( _a few laughter lines. Eddie didn’t have those)._

All he could do was pretend.

“ _…_ what are you doing sat there?”

When their eyes met atlas shifted his grip on the globe, just enough to set it off kilter for a few seconds. Just enough that it went unnoticeable to everyone else, but Eddie felt the shock reverberate through the soles of his feet, and felt the static travel up his spine. Richie felt it too. Eddie knew this because Richie’s face looked like it had when he’d left.

All he could do was pretend.

“—just follow me”

 

* * *

 

“Where wilt thou lead me? Speak; I’ll go no further”

“Mark me”

“I will”

“My hour is almost come, when I to sulphurous and tormenting flames, must render up myself”

He knows he’s ruining it. He’s barely speaking, his words coagulating into something thick and almost inaudible. Richie’s face is growing more and more frustrated, he speaks his lines with more emphasis, as if he could summon enough enthusiasm for the both of them. Words catch in his throat like bitter honey, and hacking them up like a jungle cat just makes them stick faster.

“Have you forgotten how to do it, Eds?” and Eddie almost weeps with sheer relief.

Eds. The nickname he chastised Richie over for so long, but hearing it now, in his rehearsal room, under his lights, fifteen years older but none the wiser, is a panacea to every fictional disease Eddie could ever dream of.

It’s sarcastic, perhaps, and Richie is glaring at him with wide, owlish eyes, but Eddie’s insides are squirming with something that isn’t quite joy and isn’t quite despair.

All he could do was pretend. 

“We didn’t all have the luxury of finishing our acting degrees,  _Richard”_

That wasn’t pretending. The words had chased their way out of his mouth, unguarded and insolent, without his consent. They cut his tongue to ribbons on their way out. He didn’t not mean them.

Richie carries on reading, face blooming.

 

* * *

 

“The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right! Nay, come, let's go together.”

Eddie leaves the room, alone.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Eddie! We’re all going to the pub. D’ya fancy it?”

“Uh…”

His gaze lands on Richie. Their eyes meet, and do not waver.

All he can do is pretend.

“No thanks”

_Words! Words! Words!_

_Lies! Lies! Lies!_

A half truth about being busy, and they’re placated. Richie leaves the room without glancing back. A piece of Eddie’s soul leaves with him.

 

* * *

 

He’s hiding in the toilet when Bill finds him.

“Eddie?”

He’s shocked, naturally.

“Please don’t tell anyone I’m here”

He’s confused, naturally.

“But – are you sure you don’t want to join us? There’s not much room but –”

“Bill – Please don’t tell anyone I’m here”

He’s unconvinced, naturally.

“If you’re sure”

 

* * *

 

He’s back in the club with the dripping walls. The inferno blazes around him, sticky bodies and sweaty hair.

 

 _I don't exist when you don't see me_ _  
I don't exist when you're not here_

 

The person with the slithering hips is here again, waiting in the corner of the room.

 

 _What the eye don't see won't break the heart_ _  
You can make believe when we're apart_

 

Eddie stands in the middle of the dark room, and sways.

 

_But when you leave I disappear_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! 
> 
> Remember, this is an angsty story that is slowburn [but endgame] Reddie.
> 
> Lemme know what you liked and what you hated either here or on tumblr @ queen-sock.tumblr.com
> 
> Oh and FYI, the song lyrics mentioned come from  
> Marian by The Sisters of Mercy  
> When You Don't See Me by The Sisters of Mercy
> 
> <3


	9. Act III Scene II

“O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew!”

 

Eddie listened to Hamlet whine familiar lines in an unfamiliar voice. A voice that was scratchy, a needle skipping on a record player. Nails down a chalkboard.

 

Eddie watches as Hamlet claws at his chest, talons trying to slough the skin from the bones, an attempt to free his heart from its flesh prison. It doesn’t work.

 

“Or that the everlasting had not fix’d his canon ‘gainst self slaughter! O God! God!”

 

Despite the man’s desperate pleas to paradise, Eddie’s feet remain firmly planted on the jaded earth. He watches the Prince of Denmark strut and fret his hour about the stage, and yet he feels nothing. Eddie is barely moved past boredom.

 

_Nothing._

 

“How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!” Hamlet spoke directly to the ceiling.

 

Oh, how Hamlet’s voice quivered, a controlled quake that reverberated around the room before shattering into tiny fragments to be heard no more.

 

Eddie watched, unaffected.

 

“How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!” Hamlet spoke directly to the ceiling.

 

The timbre of Hamlet’s voice was wrong. He was stressing the wrong syllables. It shouldn’t be like this. It mustn’t be like this.

 

The man stood in front of him. Almost imperceptible quivers of movement rippling through his body. A leaf in the summer breeze. A frog leg reanimated with a weak electrical current. He continued to talk.

 

Eddie did not continue to listen.

 

“But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue”

 

Nothing but silence remains.

 

Three beats pass. The bell was silent in the air.

 

“How did I do?”

 

“Hmm”

 

One.

 

Two.

 

Three.

 

“What does that mean?”

 

“It means ‘hmm’. It means it was better than last time but I suppose that is not a huge challenge now, is it, Mr Bowers?”

 

Hamlet blinked.

 

Only, he didn’t blink because Hamlet hadn’t turned up today.

 

Eddie’s Hamlet was absent without leave.

 

“Oh”

 

“Hmm”

 

“Do you have any other feedback other than ‘hmm’?”

 

“No”

 

“Shall I read it again?”

 

“Hmm”

 

* * *

 

 “Tis an unweeded garden, that grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely”

 

“No,” Eddie sighed.

 

“No?” Bowers parroted, eyes wide.

 

“No”

 

“Look, I don’t know if this is just some kinda … pretentious director type shit you’re playing, but you’re not giving me much to work with here”

 

“You shouldn’t need my help”

 

“I’m pretty sure it’s your fucking _job_ to help me”

 

“He doesn’t need my help”

 

“Who?”

 

“The best damn Hamlet this theatre company will ever see”

 

“Richard?”

 

“Yes”

 

Bowers remained silent.

 

One.

 

Two.

 

Three.

 

Fou–

 

“He didn’t turn up though”

 

“He did not” Eddie agreed, patience waxing and waning.

 

“What if he pulls this shit on opening night?”

 

“What indeed”

 

“I’m the understudy, you have a _duty_ to prepare me for this role in case fuckface doesn’t turn up again”

 

A duty?

 

Aye. A _duty._

 

A duty to his cast. To his crew.

 

To his Hamlet.

 

“A duty?” Eddie muses aloud, swilling the word around in his mouth.

 

To be dutiful. To have a vested interest in cultivating Richie. Fashioning him, crafting him, preening him until he was _just so._  Adorning him with praise and cutting him down with critique, just enough to keep a semblance of confidence lodged deep within his gut, but not enough so that he floats away. A thorned rose.

 

 _Duty._ The word was bitter on his tongue, and Eddie wished he could spit it out onto Richie’s face.

 

“Are you going to help me or not?”

 

“Are you going to read it properly”

 

“I _was”_

 

“You were not”

 

“I’m not him, I can’t do it like he does”

 

“Oh, Bowers, please do not remind me” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch me on tumblr @ queen-sock
> 
> thanks for reading <3


	10. Act III Scene III

“The rest is silence”

 

Eddie watches Richie’s face shift from painted anguish to peaceful nothingness. He watches Richie’s eyes dance under his eyelids, a wakeful dream. Eddie had memorised the choreography when he’d sat up late at night whilst Richie slept, eyes two-stepping and arms blindly grabbing for Eddie.

 

“Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet Hamlet, and –”

 

Richie’s eyes fly open.

 

“Good night sweet _prince_ ,” Eddie corrects, and Stan’s face blanches.

 

“ _Shit!_ Sorry. Good night sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! Uh …”

 

“Why does…” Eddie prompts, but Stan doesn’t finish the line.

 

“Why does the drum come hither?” Eddie supplies, voice schooled into careful apathy, not wanting to spook the flighty animal stood in front of him, who had Richie’s head cradled loosely in his lap. 

 

Richie’s eyes close again, and Eddie holds his breath.

 

“Why does the drum come hither?”

 

Fortinbras storms in, but Eddie doesn’t look at him. Horatio and Fortinbras exchange terse words, but Eddie cannot draw his eyes away from Richie’s face. The last time he’d seen this expression painted on his brow was the night before he’d told Eddie to leave, when they’d held each other all night and the acceptance letter had turned poisonous and fetid in Eddie’s bag.

 

“Not from his mouth, had it the ability of life to thank you, he … he … FUCK!”

 

Richie’s eyes open again.

 

“He never gave commandment for their death” Richie said, in a tone that Eddie imagined was supposed to be helpful but caused Stan to visibly bristle.

 

“You’re supposed to be dead”

 

“I’m just trying to help”

 

“I don’t need your help, Richard” Stan deadpanned, staring down at Richie with

 

“Look, you’re obviously struggling, I was just –”

 

“Richie, can you give us a moment, please?”

 

 Richie stands up, uncharacteristically quiet, and slinks out of the room, tail between his legs.

 

The air in the small rehearsal room hangs like smog, heavy on their shoulders. Stan’s shaking, just barely, and Eddie knows that Stan thinks Eddie’s going to sack him, relieve him of his part and send him back into the wilderness, nameless.

 

Eddie sits down on the floor in the middle of the room, carefully arranging his limbs in an attempt to look less threatening, less like the person that could erase Horatio’s world with a snap of his fingers.

 

“Come sit”

 

Stan hesitates, before taking measured steps over to where Eddie is sat in a half-lotus position, hands clasped in his lap.

 

Stan sits.

 

“How much do you remember of our RADA days?”

 

Stan blinks.

 

“Uh, most of it, I guess? I remember – I remember you were in our seventeenth-century tragedy class before –”

 

Eddie smiles, lips drawn into a lazy, lopsided grin. Honest.

 

“Heh. Before I left, you mean?”

 

“Yup. Richie was pretty crushed”

 

“I don’t want to talk about Richie,” Eddie replies, voice gentle but laced with _do not do not do not,_ “I want to talk about you”

 

“Look, Eddie, I know – I know I’m fucking it up. I know that I’m probably not the Horatio you want me to be, but… I’m trying? I’m trying so _fucking_ hard, Eddie, honest I am. I just – I can’t seem to – I really want …”

 

“Do you remember Jacques?”

 

“How could I forget Jacques? I’m pretty sure anyone who has had even a three second interaction with _Jacques_ remembers him,” Stan says, voice several ounces lighter.

 

Eddie shifts, right leg numb and protesting. He ends up sitting on his ass with his legs pin-straight out in front of him. Stan does the same.

 

“Jacques told me to leave RADA. He told me that I was never going to reach my potential in that environment, that it wasn’t the right place for me to grow, to flower. I didn’t hate him for saying it. I hated myself. Of course I felt like a failure. I’d tried and tried and _tried_ but it wasn’t ever going to happen. I’d never be the prodigy my mother told me I was going to be”

 

“Eddie, are you–” Stan whispers, but Eddie shakes his head violently.

 

“Let me finish, Stan. I handed in my letter of intention before they could ask me to leave. That made it easier. I went out on my own terms.”

 

“Do you – are you asking me to –”

 

“Stan!”

 

“Sorry”

 

“I didn’t want it enough. I never did. Never have. I want _this,”_ Eddie gestures wildly around the small rehearsal room, to his desk where his papers lay strewn across the surface like autumn leaves, to the grubby mirrors where he watched his cast metamorphosise every day, to the ceiling that he’d stare at, and thank a God he doesn’t believe in for giving him all of this, for letting him take it and consume it and become corpulent.

 

“You want it” Eddie announces after a beat of silence, and it isn’t a question.

 

“I want it” Stan parrots, staring at Eddie with wide, _help me help me help me_ eyes.

 

“You want it, and I’ll help you get it. You’ve been cast for a reason, Stan. Claire saw something in you, something she knew I could nurture, and she was _right._ You are my Horatio, and as long as you’re willing to work with me, I’ll claw him out of you.”

 

Stan looks bewildered, like Eddie had just agreed to lasso the moon and drag it down just for him.

 

“Even if you _did_ fuck up, it’d be nothing to do with you, anyway. That’d be on me. I’m your director, this production is my responsibility and mine alone. All of you, Horatio, Ophelia, Claudius,” Eddie pauses, screwing his eyes closed, before opening them again and locking eyes with Stan, “Hamlet. All of you. This is my ship and if it goes down, it’ll have been me who bore holes in the deck.”

 

“I don’t know what to say”

 

“Say you’ll stay, say you’ll work with me, say you’ll let me help you grow”

 

* * *

 

“Why are you giving Horatio more attention than me? I’m supposed to be the lead!”

 

It takes Richie longer than Eddie had guessed to detonate.

 

“Pardon?” Eddie answers, ready to go toe to toe with the Prince of Denmark on a battlefield of his own making, but Stan’s voice gets there first.

 

“Stop being a fucking child, Richie”

 

And they’re off. A verbal sparring match, the fencing scene several acts too soon. Eddie watches them, hidden in the corner like Polonius behind the curtain, expecting to get stabbed in the stomach by a rogue insult.

 

The fight is over almost as soon as it had begun, however, as Richie drops his sword and a pitiful ‘ _what happened to us’_ falls to the ground instead.

 

Then Eddie’s name falls from Stan’s lips and he feels that puncture wound he’d been waiting for.

 

“There hasn’t been an ‘us’ since you ignored me when Eddie left,” Stan replies, eyes downcast, “I missed you, Rich, I rang you for two fucking years, of course I missed you. But this petulant child isn’t you. You need to sort it out. You can’t draw him in when you’re pushing everyone else out.”

 

Eddie releases a wounded howl ripped straight from the part of his heart that he had locked away when he’d left Richie sat at that dining room table fourteen years ago.

 

Richie turns, horror evident in his pained expression.

 

“ _Eddie_ ”

 

* * *

 

As soon as he saw him, Eddie knew that Michael Hanlon was made for the role of Ophelia. The softness of his face contrasted with the feral nymph in his eyes, the _liberate me_ timbre of his voice, all of it. With flowers woven in his hair, Mike had captivated Eddie from the first syllable. Whilst watching him work with Richie, the way Mike had managed to distil the naivety of youth so perfectly that it fell from his skin in waves, Eddie had never felt so lucky.

 

“My lord, I have remembrances of yours, that I have longed long to re-deliver; I pray you, now receive them.”

 

Mike tries to thrust a small collection of letters into Richie’s hands but Richie sends them flying into the sky, only to rain back down on them like snowflakes, alike but subtly different. A sickness gnaws at Eddie’s stomach when he remembers the letters he’d sent to Richie, and whether Richie would condemn them to the ground, unread. Unopened.

 

Richie responds with a cold, “No, not I; I never gave you aught”, and the sickness in Eddie’s stomach grows stronger, and stronger.

 

_I never gave you aught._

_Never gave you aught._

_Oh, but Richie, you gave me everything._

Mike slumps to the floor, rehearsal dress pooling around him. Richie grabs his face between his hands, and whispers through gritted teeth, “ _get thee to a nunnery!”_ and it’s perfect. It’s too perfect.

 

Richie stalks off, standing in the corner of the room that indicated that he was now off-stage and Eddie doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t look, he doesn’t look, he mustn’t look but then he does look and Richie’s looking right back.

 

They share a small smile.

 

Mike continues to howl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!! I took some time off to finish my master's thesis but now I've finished that and my degree and I have TIME TO WRITE AGAIN. Updates will be much quicker now. Thanks for sticking around x


	11. Act III Scene IV

Sonia Kaspbrak was so _proud_ of her son. Her son, the _director._ Her son, the _artistic director_ of … some Shakespeare thing that she didn’t quite understand, but that didn’t matter. She knew that he was successful, that the fruit of her loins conducted interviews with newspapers and magazines and these internet people. She’d spent hours and hours trawling the newspapers, or tentatively clicking through articles on the dusty old desktop Eddie had used when he lived at home.

 

_THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY APPOINTS A NEW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR_

_EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH EDWARD KASPBRAK, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF THE RSC, ABOUT THE CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING THE RECENT RUN OF TITUS ANDRONICUS: IS THERE SUCH A THING AS TOO MUCH FAKE BLOOD?_

 

THE YOUNGEST ARTISTIC DIRECTOR IN RSC HISTORY: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EDWARD KASPBRAK

 

Her son, the _famous_ director. Famous enough that so, when she was at the supermarket, she was able to bat her cow-long eyelashes at Mrs Saunders from down the road, before announcing, “ _oh my Eddie-Bear is sooooo busy these days, what with directing a production of Hamlet and all. What was it that your son does again? A plumber? Ah yes, how very … normal”_ before she’d skitter off, expensive carrots jiggling in her basket, Mrs Saunders sending daggers into her back, but it didn’t matter, because her Eddie-Bear was _famous._ He was _someone._

 

* * *

 

Visiting his mother was like pulling teeth with no anaesthetic. Clinical. You knew how long you’d be in the chair for, almost down to the second. You could anticipate the relentless tugging, the grinding of bone and metal. You could clutch onto the chair, knuckles white, bones straining against skin, until it was over and you’d leave, swollen, bloody and bruised.

 

Eddie knocked on the door, three short sharp raps, and waited.

 

“ _Eddieeeeeee!”_

 

The door swung open and there she was. His mother, in all her foppish glory. Her hair was piled on top of her head with a too-wide grin plastered onto her face, a gaping wound that threatened to split her face in two.

 

“Hello, mother,” Eddie said, “it’s nice to see you”

 

“Oh, I saw that interview you did on the facetube thing, you looked awful, Eddie, your face is so _gaunt!”_

 

“I’m just stressed, mother. The production is –“

 

“They interviewed the lead, Richard something, was it? Yes, Richard. His _hair,_ Eddie, couldn’t you make him cut it? He looks like a feral beast!”

 

“Mother, I –”

 

“I was wondering whether I might ring the daily mail, you know, try and get them to run a story on you, what do you think?”

 

Eddie side-stepped his mother, pushing his way into the small kitchen. It looked the same as it always did, forgotten take-away cartons piled on the sideboard, the sickly-sweet stench of rot hanging in the air.

 

“Have you not emptied the bins today?”

 

“Uh – No. I forgot, and anyway, Eddie, you should really be living here with me, you know I can’t look after myself properly anymore”

 

The first time she’d dragged him to the doctor with her, he’d gone willingly. Dementia, she’d started calling it. The natural forgetfulness that comes with age warped and moulded in her doughy hands into something more sinister. The doctor had sent her away, a kind but stern instruction to stop wasting their time.

 

“I’ve definitely got it, Eddie-Bear. I’m definitely ill and they’re _ignoring_ me. Well, we’ll see whose laughing when I’m six foot underground and my brain has turned to soup”

 

“That’s not how dementia works, Mother”

 

“and another thing, I can’t believe they refused to look at my mole, I know you’re only supposed to raise one issue per appointment but –”

 

* * *

 

Eddie firmly believed that the best trait of man was his propensity to become accustomed to any situation. Man is a creature who can get used to anything. Used to the grinding resentment that often came with love, used to the way the stars twinkle in the sky just so, until they became but dull streetlights, guiding you home with a belly full of whiskey and a head full of cotton wool, get used to the way the way the air smells after a summer storm, ripe with dewy petrichor. Man was a creature that could get used to anything, so long as he was exposed to it long enough. But the sight of Richie, slumped on a chair before him, one arm slung behind his head, an Adonis in repose, was something unlike the rest. Richie, standing in the middle of the room, gesticulating wildly, _what a piece of work is man!,_ Richie, with Mike’s face clasped between his hands, _God has given you one face and you make yourself another,_ Richie, supine on the floor, _the rest is silence._ Different. Terrifyingly so.

 

Eddie watches him from his desk, sitting in something he hopes looks like philosophical detachment but in reality tastes more like a pathetic sort of yearning. Even from the cheap seats, Richie looks titanic. Olympian.

 

“This physick but prolongs thy sickly days”

 

“That was…”

 

“What? I know I probably could have come in stronger on the _Up, Sword!_ Bit, but I was trying to –”

 

“You were perfect”

 

Richie blinks, a slow, exaggerated motion.

 

“Perfect?”

 

“Perfect”

 

“Oh”

 

Neither of them move to say anything else. The silence, hallowed by the centuries of ex-lovers who have sung the same notes, drapes itself around their shoulders. They stare at each other endlessly, challenging, the mating ritual of two spiders in a flask, caught between devouring each other and tearing each other limb from limb. Perhaps the two are the same.

 

“Have you cast the ghost yet?”

 

The question pulls Eddie out of his introspection, lightning fast and just as hot.

 

“No”

 

“Oh”

 

Eddie drops the gauntlet in front of Richie’s feet. _Your move, my Lord._

 

“Okay. I trust you”

 

Richie flings the gauntlet back at Eddie. It clatters to the floor.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some stupid metaphors in this. I had fun writing it.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece for Unpack my Heart With Words. You can read this as a stand alone, but it'd make more sense to read these two pieces simultaneously. 
> 
> This will be Eddie's POV (Unpack My Heart is Richie's!)
> 
> Lemme know what you loved and what you hated either in the comments here or on tumblr; queen-sock.tumblr.com 
> 
> <3


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